Mid Winter

I've been struggling to upload a new blog post for around a week. Our internet connection has spat the dummy. In fact, it's a problem being experienced right around the district. We don't have broadband. We don't have ADSL. We have to use a Telstra WiFi connection, which costs us dearly for minimal usage. Just one of the joys of living in the country! 

But here's something to be super excited about. This past month I sent two entries to the Royal Melbourne Fine Foods Awards. And what do you know... we won a SILVER medal! We're mightily pleased. I did do a little checking to see who had won gold, but there was no gold medal awarded. So my goal is to improve the intensity of the raspberry flavour and hit the judges right in the middle of their taste buds :-)

I was given this recipe by Anne Woods over in Birregurra. It's from Mrs Jekyll's recipes from 1922. Old things can be new again! Mrs Jekyll suggests that this cordial is an elixir that is perfect when taken after being exhausted by gardening, exasperated by church or tired by tennis. We agree.

We're waiting for our new little silver stickers to arrive so we can adorn our Rapsberry Vinegar Cordial bottles. 

And just a little thrill that came with the award... A retweet by Pip Courtney (Landline Presenter) on our award. Thanks Pip!

I'm still slow cooking garlic to turn it into Black Garlic. Our garlic salts are proving to be very popular. This reminds me that the garlic growing in the paddock needs weeding! Oh joy..

It was one of those days..

The only way I can get through the awful task of plucking feathers from dead birds is to set myself time challenges. I've managed to pluck a chook in 8 minutes. A duck still challenges my skills. The best is around 19 minutes. I do not like plucking ducks. Not at all.

I used to freeze the birds whole and then wait for an occasion when we had a few mouths to feed before cooking them. However, I now cut them up and freeze them in portions. So much easier. There's nothing quite like eating a free range farm bird. It is lean and tasty. Yes, it needs slow cooking, but it tastes pretty amazing.

July was a month that challenged us in many ways. The worst was that Frans and I both got sick. It took me over three weeks to get over it. I still bear the residual cough. It was lovely getting a drop in visit from Chef Simon Stewart from Bespoke Harvest one afternoon. His lovely partner Kara had told him we were sick and to bring soup! Which he did. Thank you Simon and Kara!

It's good to know you have friends!

Soup to make us better.

We've done a bit around the yard. Frans has shovelled loads of chook poo onto the asparagus bed.

We love asparagus. It has such a short window of production and we treasure every spear. Usually I'll made a duck egg frittata with two or three spears freshly cut from the garden. So you can imagine my pleasure when we were gifted three huge boxes of just lifted asparagus plants from a friend. This required immediate action. We cleared up one of our long vegetable beds, dug deep trenches and piled in the compost. The plants were evenly spaced along the trench and the soil put back on top. 

Then on top of that we spread a generous layer of cow poo. We are looking forward to Spring! I'm hoping we can eat from these new plants this year as they were already established when they were lift. Crossing fingers!

We've also added another 17 trees of all descriptions to our little 'food forest'. There are figs, pears, nectarines, cherry, almond (I've been told I say this word with a strange accent... I pronounce the 'l' in almond), grape vines and hazelnuts. There are also an number of citrus trees; grapefruit, cumquat, navel orange, lemon and lime.

Planting trees and mulching is thirsty work!

The garlic was netted to keep the rabbits out, not to mention the parrots!

I'm keeping track of our frosty mornings. So far we've had six. This was the heaviest. It was a winter wonderland! Beautiful to look at. Not that great for some of the soft herbs and leafy greens.

The perennial basil below took a beating.

And just because I love the cows, here's a photo of Eileen and her little heifer Lucky. This is afternoon tea.

Feeding out hay is a combined effort. The chickens love to assist too.

And we said goodbye to Michael Jackson a few weeks ago. So Spike is king pin once again. All is well in the chook yard!

Till next time,

Remember where your food comes from.

Eat well.

Ami

Winter Catch up!

Yes it's been a while! Life has been busy on the farm. Just when I think we're going to slow down, we just seem to get busier!

Autumn has been and gone. We've even passed the longest night of the year. We've yet to experience the really cold days of winter. 

Pour a cuppa and I'll take you through our activities for the last couple of months!

The Autumn vines outside our lounge room window.

The same vines from the inside. The colours were glorious. The leaves have all fallen now. 

The little garden bed we built and planted in front of the cabin is looking good. The smell of sweet alyssum and lavender is lovely as you walk along the pathways.

Autumn is a busy time in the garden, harvesting all the summer veggies.

Some tomatoes were kept to eat as is. Some were turned into Passata.

I dried a few in the Rayburn. What a wonderful piece of equipment! Drying fruits and vegetables adds another dimension to preserving our harvest.

These dried tomatoes were popped into olive oil and a little vegetable oil, then kept in the fridge. The vegetable oil stops the whole lot solidifying.

The green tomatoes I couldn't bear to throw onto the compost heap, I hung up in the old shed. We're still picking ripening tomatoes, and it's almost July!

Autumn also heralds apple picking season. We picked many kilograms of apples. Some we gave away in bags and baskets. Then we juiced around 700 apples to turn into our first cider. Our young friend Michael, who helped Frans build the cabin, came down for a weekend. He didn't think he was coming to chop fruit, but he did a splendid job! His big hands are a pair of machines. He could squeeze every last drop of juice from the pulp!

A few weeks later friends John and Jan Verouden from Gellibrand came over to help us bottle our brew. John is the cider expert. Under his guidance we have hopefully created a ripper of a little drop!

John knows all the little tricks to make bottling easy.

While John poured, Frans added the sugar and tapped the tops onto the bottles. 

Then a gentle shake to make sure there was no hiss!

Of course once the apples are picked, the nets have to come down. Let's just say this is not a job for the faint hearted. That ladder is very high. It also helps to make sure the clips are in place. Just saying...

Besides being busy about the farm, I also attended a 6 week course with the Master Tree Growers Association. Each week we visited various properties about the district. We learned much about tree growing. Time well spent. 

Yep, those are my old boots sticking out from the back of a ute (utility vehicle, or bakkie if you're South African!)

Course participants piled onto vehicles and be bounced around paddocks inspecting shelter belts and tree plantations.

With garlic planting coming up in Autumn, our very obliging neighbour Graham brought around his old tractor and ploughed our new garlic beds for us. We picked a new spot at the top end of the cow paddock. Of course we had to take the fence down so the tractor could get in to spread the compost we'd had delivered. It was a job we could not do by hand. We'd still be there!

We'd ploughed these rows way back in February and had added organic material to them and let them rest. We added a last topping of good quality compost and then the fun began!

Those rows are very long! We will need a lot of seed!

For the few days before we planted, anyone who entered the door got put in front of a pile of garlic! Here's the lovely Lorraine peeling away. 

Sara and Stephen didn't escape the chore either. Neither did the neighbour from across the road!

Then it was all systems go. Or rather, down on bended knees and hands in the dirt!

Frans plants on his knees. I like to bend over. Whatever works...

The beds are mounded up to help with drainage.

Each variety of garlic is planted in it's own section. Sometime we forget where we planted what. So I usually draw a mud map and list what we've planted where.

It's done. Now we wait till December!

In the mean time, I have taken some of the last harvest and had a play with creating Black Garlic. Let's just say that the first time you try something and it fails, don't give up. I have now worked out how to do this and have created a by product along the way. It's called Black Garlic Salt!

Black garlic is the result of taking regular white garlic (our organically grown produce in this instance) and applying heat to it in a very controlled environment for a long time. Up to 40 days in fact. It is a Korean 'invention' and is heralded as one of those 'super foods'. Black garlic is loaded with antioxidants and is now finding its way onto many fancy menus around the world. 

The newly processed black garlic can be used in sauces and is delicious in Asian dishes. It tastes a little like sweet balsamic vinegar crossed with liquorice. It is that 5th taste, known as Umami. 

And here it is. Black Garlic Salt. It is delicious sprinkled on roast tomatoes for breakfast, on eggs, on roast potatoes, meat and anything you like! It is fabulous on smashed avocado on a piece of home baked toast, smeared with a fresh garlic clove, drizzeld with a little olive oil. I guess you'd call it "Smashed Avo & Black Garlic  Bruscetta". 

And because I like to see how far I can push a new product, we have smoked some of bulbs with our own apple wood. The smoked garlic cloves are sublime in pasta dishes. The Smoked Garlic Salt is great on fish, chicken and anything you want to add a 'smokey' hit to.

Both products are sold in 40g packets. Chefs can order bulk jars.

 I'm excited that a couple of great restaurants in the district are now using our salt. 

Message me via Facebook or email me if you're interested in trying any of these products.

We took our first offering to the Forrest SoupFest in June. We sold out!

Sara and I made it into the local paper. What fun.

In my never ending quest of reviving old skills, I had a go at preserving olives. Frans was lucky enough to get a few kilograms from a work mate. So I 'Googled' a number of methods and decided on  two. I bought a lovely olive preserving pot in Mildura a few years ago, so I really wanted to use it. I followed the instructions and I now have a batch of olives brining slowly in the spare bedroom cupboard for the next 4 months! Let's just not forget they're there.

I also took some of the olives and slit them and simply salted them with sea salt. They have been shrinking and getting more wrinkly and I think they're about ready to take to the next step. Google. 

I had a birthday a couple of weeks ago. Here is an absolutely awesome present from neighbours Graham and Lorraine. It is a freshly dressed turkey! I cooked it at the bottom of the Rayburn for 24 hours, using all sorts of delicious spices in the stuffing. It smelled like Christmas! 

We have since had turkey soup and there is a whole lot frozen to make turkey pie!

Friends Martyn and Eugenia came to visit and brought with them a bottle of 30 year old Grange. They celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary earlier this year, and it's our 30th in November. So they thought they'd share it with us. What lovely, unselfish friends! And yes, it was fabulous!

We celebrated my birthday lunch at Bespoke Harvest in Forrest. Sara and Stephen surprised us by coming down the night before.

My little brother Lionel came down from Brisbane too! What a treat! (love the photo bomber in the background! That's Emma)

Here we are with Emma Ashton, owner of Bespoke Harvest. It's our favourite restaurant. We're lucky to have such a great venue so close to home!

My 'cake'. A delicious dessert with a yoghurt custard, rhubarb and Persian fairy floss. 

And this is Chef Simon Stewart, the clever young chef who is doing amazing things with local produce. 

Are you still with me??? Sorry about all the pics of moi, but it was my birthday! 

Almost done, I promise!

It was also CWA Exhibition time again for our local Polwarth Group. Last year I was lucky enough to take out the craft and the home industries shields. This year I won the home industries award again. This time it was for my 'Pickled Figs'. I was given the figs by an elderly lady in Colac, and she also gave me a very old recipe to pickle them. 

The judges obviously loved them! They are meant to be eaten at Christmas with the ham or turkey. I've got some stashed away in the pantry for just that occasion!

Fellow branch member Prue Campbell won the shield for the craft section this year. 

Our branch moved from the bottom of the ladder to the very top! We're super proud of ourselves. In the photo from left:

Sara Cashman 1st prize for her Worcestershire Sauce. Mine came second. Damn! Prue Campbell hiding, Poppy Barry at the back. She won the Green Tomato Pickle prize for the THIRD year! She's the queen of pickles for sure! Monica Provan our lovely President. Then at the back we have the amazing Amanda Garner and front right my lovely neighbour Lorraine Seabrook who won 1st place for her wicket mint slice! Frans loves that slice. A well deserved win!

Then last weekend we passed the longest night of the year. 

We sat in front of the fire with a glass or two of red. Ahhh. Life is good.

The night was cold and clear. The moon and stars just rising.

And just when I start getting gloomy about the sad state of the garden, I notice the jonquils have started blooming. In a few weeks the yellow daffodils will be up and we'll feel more cheery on those grey days!

Till next time,

Be safe.

Ami